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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27706525">i would go home again to rooms</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge'>thefudge</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Queen's Gambit (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adultery, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Resolved Sexual Tension, a mixture of Pasternak and D.H. Lawrence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:34:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27706525</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You ought to have been Russian,” he says, helping her roll down the stockings.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Vasily Borgov/Beth Harmon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>383</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i would go home again to rooms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>the title is taken from a poem by Boris Pasternak which is mentioned and quoted in the story.<br/>yes, this is going to be that level of obnoxious, because these two deserve nothing less!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Underneath it all, Elizabeth is an old-fashioned girl. That’s why she prefers Beth to Lizzie. That’s why she likes fine clothes – not <em>pretty </em>– but fine, well-tailored clothes, long-lasting eyeliner that doesn’t smudge, petunia beds sectioned in little squares, and delicately varnished nails, the color of mother of pearl. To her first opponents she had seemed a coltish tomboy; to those who followed, a self-hating feminist or bold provocateur, depending on the day.</p><p>Really, only <em>he</em> noticed that she is a very quaint creature, no Venus in Furs, but simply Venus, a self-contained statue kept on a little pedestal in an ornate parlor, happy to be among objects.</p><p>Borgov knows the price of objects. He has grown up missing one thing or another. He does not appreciate, nor would he understand, Benny’s vagabond apartment and the self-deluded choice to actually live there.</p><p>Beth whole-heartedly agrees.</p><p>It is a relief to be a materialist with him. It is a relief to be seen as plain, after all.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Plain in a spiritual sense.</p><p>For he insists, in his quiet, dignified way, that she is exquisite.</p><p>The word he applies in Russian is a little different. It means exquisitely fulfilled. Consummately complete. Domestic and perfect.</p><p><em>Sovershennaya</em>.</p><p>She blushes the first time he says it, because he lets it slip in her ear when he clasps her to him after the final game. She thinks he is complimenting her playing, because both she and the game are feminine in Russian, but his expression closes off too quickly. He lets go of her and steps back, mortified. She realizes that he meant her and her alone.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Later, much later, she dares to make a joke of it. Exquisitely <em>fulfilled</em>. Yes, yes, she is. She gives him a slightly theatrical moan.</p><p>Vasily does not appreciate the taunt. He pushes her head gently to the side. He presses her face into the pillow, his workmanlike fingers keeping her locked in position. Beth can breathe just fine, but she pretends to cough and choke. Vasily stills between her legs and grabs her chin.</p><p>Beth stares up at him with large, moth-like eyes that never fail to cut him right at the ankle.</p><p>“Why did you stop?” she asks hoarsely.</p><p>He shakes his head. “Don’t do that.”</p><p>“Do what?”</p><p>“Play games.”</p><p>“That is what we do, most of the time,” she says glibly.</p><p>“Yes, but this is serious.”</p><p><em>And chess isn’t?</em> she yearns to ask. But she feels special. Having sex with her is more important.</p><p>He does not take the adultery lightly. How could he?</p><p>If he must break his wife’s heart, he will make it matter.</p><p>He kisses her then, ending all possible games.</p><p>She never gets tired of his mouth, very warm and orthodox, the mouth of a man who did not expect to kiss someone else again. Almost like he’s new at it. A beginner.   </p><p>She kisses him back, loving the tasteless meal of him, how he is always solid, so solid, even a little rough with his fingers and cock, and yet almost transparent, almost not-there in the way that he brings about her pleasure. Much like his game, he moves the pieces in such a pedestrian, obvious fashion, and yet the result is somehow –</p><p>“<em>Oh</em>.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He watches her clean her watch with a Q-Tip.</p><p>“I like that you appreciate the value of things,” he says, lighting a cigarette.</p><p>She pauses. “You don’t think I’m vain, do you?”</p><p>He catches his tie neatly with the silver pin. “No. You simply respect what belongs to you.”</p><p>She likes that.</p><p>“I have a collection of old watches. I keep it at my father’s dacha. The state requested for a family to be settled there temporarily, so I had to hide the watches. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but some things must be set aside because they belong to us.”</p><p>He tells her all this very casually, seemingly unbothered by the possibility that they are being watched on or listened to. Certainly, by now, both his side and hers know they have slept together. Perhaps he is trying to confuse them.</p><p><em>Do I belong to you?</em> she wonders, picturing a secret wooden compartment hidden somewhere in that dacha, maybe under the stairs.</p><p>“I’d like to give you things,” he adds, hesitantly.</p><p>Another young woman would say, <em>I don’t need anything. I just need you.</em></p><p>But Beth smiles. “I’d like that.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>How does it start?</p><p>Officially, in Tokyo, a year and six months after Moscow.</p><p>Unofficially, all it takes is for her to describe to him over drinks – the first time they’re sharing one in the hotel lobby – what it felt like to play him back in Mexico.</p><p>“You had just beaten me and it was the most shameful and exciting thing that had ever happened to me. My pulse was elevated for hours. It was like breathing through a straw. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. I was euphoric. I kept looking at my hands and wanting to break them.” Her moth-like eyes blink at him. “Have you ever felt like that?”</p><p>He regards her solemnly. He is the rough marble block before the sculptor. The line of his mouth is soft and grim.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Was it after I beat you?” she asks, presumptuous.</p><p>He smiles a half-smile. “No.”</p><p>Beth frowns. “When then?”</p><p>And he says, “Now.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Now?” Her mouth trembles.</p><p>“Now.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They are both traditional, old-fashioned creatures so that first evening he only kisses her hand and wishes her good luck on the following morning’s games and she tells him she will come look at his board after his games. He smiles, looks down modestly.</p><p>Three days later, they meet in the elevator.</p><p>“Look at what I bought,” she says, showing him the Shogi board, still wrapped in paper. “Japanese chess. I thought we could try it. I’ve never played before.”</p><p>“Neither have I, though I hear it is quite fiendish.”</p><p>They stand close to each other, staring at the lacquered board. His body shields hers. She is safeguarded by his broad chest. She would like him to slip his arm around her waist, casually, almost as if they were married. It would feel natural. Whenever she is in his presence, he makes her feel she could be a very doting wife, even though the notion of matrimony has never interested her.</p><p>Perhaps she is only looking for the father she lost.</p><p>But when Borgov comes up to her room that night to play Japanese chess – well – she doesn’t find a father.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He does confirm her suspicions. The third time they make love, he tells her that she has that certain inner quality, that domestic calm that makes her a perfect companion. An excellent wife.</p><p>
  <em>Sovershennaya jena. </em>
</p><p>She fulfills and is being fulfilled. She pictures his future children in her belly. She pictures making jam in bare feet while he tends to a small kitchen fire. But she pictures it wrong. Most likely, it would be a grey apartment block with ice-cold radiators. She would catch a cold if she walked on bare feet. They would always wear socks. He would be very particular about that. He would caress her belly, but he would not fuss over it. She would like that.</p><p>He sees all of this in her expression. There is something sturdily elemental and anti-intellectual about them when you strip them to the bone.</p><p>“You ought to have been Russian,” he says, helping her roll down the stockings.</p><p>“But then, I don’t think we would’ve met,” she muses.</p><p>He considers the matter for a moment and he nods sadly. “You’re right. We would have wandered this wide country alone, without ever knowing each other.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> “Don’t they mind? That you’re sleeping with the American?” she asks, facing him in bed.</p><p>“Oh, no. The boys in mustard are actually pleased that they have a new set of circumstances to use against me.”</p><p>Beth shivers and giggles guiltily. “Oops.”</p><p>He tugs on her cheek fondly. The earrings he gave her glitter against her peach skin.</p><p>He remembers that evening in her hotel room in Tokyo when she dropped one earring on the Shogi board as she bent over it, and he picked it up for her and he held it in his palm. It was a hoop earring, plastic. For some beastly reason, having nothing to do with his actual temper, he broke it in half and he threw the broken pieces into the basket next to the table.</p><p>Beth watched him, mesmerized.</p><p>She had always watched him, right from the beginning. Before the chess, really. Beyond it.</p><p>She gave him the other hoop earring and he broke that one too and threw it in the basket.</p><p>And then Beth stepped up to him and very nervously placed her arms on his chest and he put his arms on her shoulders like he did when she won the game.</p><p>“Do you still have that feeling I told you about?” she asked hoarsely.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Me too.”</p><p>“How childish we are,” he rasped and placed his fingers at the base of her neck and lifted the queen to his mouth.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>During the long months where they don’t see each other, she writes him coded letters.</p><p>She tells him she unfortunately finds <em>Doctor Zhivago</em> very boring, even though she can see the parallels between their stories.  </p><p>Vasily is offended, though too polite to make a fuss about it. He only writes,</p><p>
  <em>Try his poetry instead.</em>
</p><p>Beth lies in bed, thinking of him.</p><p>
  <em>Again, though weak my heart, O Moscow,<br/>I listen, and in words compose<br/>The way you smoke, the way you rise,<br/>The way your great construction goes.</em>
</p><p>Like all women with plain desires, she makes the poem about herself. There is no Moscow. There is only her. And her great construction rises and goes.</p><p>She touches the pulse at her throat.</p><p>He still elicits that far-away terror.</p><p>His face, so severe in the heart of the game. So ordinary too. That is his lethal charm.</p><p>He is a very decent sort of man, but just like her, he becomes a stranger when the pieces slide obscenely across the checkered board.</p><p>That is why his wife always looked aggrieved in the background, even when he was winning.</p><p>Because she would never share that thirst for abstract battle.  </p><p>Only Beth could sit across from him and drink from the same cup.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In Paris, her tears and sweat startled him, their organic presence an unexpected strategy. She smelled of sex and despair.</p><p>He felt horrible for the rest of the day.</p><p>He snapped at his wife, though he did not mean to. He wanted to see someone cry. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The artificial red of her hair is not a color he recognizes. It is a fancy, a whim, a sort of decorous, diaphanous veil. It is the spray of poppies in the field and his mother showing him the butterflies who doze on them.</p><p>He offers her his hand. Elizabeth takes it. At first, she allows her clasped fingers to rest there. But soon, she is trying to cover his hand with hers. Even here, before everything, the need to fold into each other, to keep something between them.</p><p> “Take it, it’s yours,” he says.</p><p>She grips his knuckles and the King slides obscenely between them.</p><p>Chess is nothing more than a journey from her end of the board to his, from him to her, and back again.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>How lovely to be crowded against the wall in a mirrored hallway and to see your reflection multiplied but to not be able to see your face because he’s standing before you and he’s got his fingers on your cheek as he tells you, yes, <em>you</em>, Beth, that you should go back to your room because you’re distracting him, because he needs to go over the game tonight, and you, yes, <em>you</em> Beth, you smile into his hand and say, “Forget the game.”</p><p>And he shakes his head, ever the unromantic, and wishes you goodnight and leaves you panting against the wall.</p><p>But hours after midnight, when you open your eyes to the dark, he’s there, at the side of the bed and he presses a palm over your mouth because you were about to shriek and he tells you, all serious and stark, “yes, I’ve gone over the game again,” and he unties your nightgown and strokes your warm skin until it thrums, and you, yes <em>you</em>, Beth, ask him to tell it to you, to tell you how he finished the game, to narrate every move into your ear as he takes you, and he says, “you don’t need me to tell you,”, at least not with words, and he is absolutely right.</p><p>You just look into his eyes and it’s all there.</p><p>Every move. Everything.</p><p> </p>
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